Guapa

  “What?” she says.

  “It’s evening prayer time,” the man says. “Have some respect and turn off the music. Haram.”

  “Eib on you for interfering in a woman’s affairs,” she says, playing her eib like a trump card. “Mind your own business.” She rolls up the window and hands me the joint.

  “Eib eib eib. What isn’t eib?” I mutter. The light turns green and we carry on driving. We turn right onto the road that leads to the hotel where the wedding reception is taking place. The hotel was built five years ago with Gulf money. The building looks like an Arabian nights theme park, all sandy and dome-like. Bright yellow spotlights shine against the walls and pillars of the hotel, which gives the sandy walls the appearance of being gold-plated. On most nights, blue lasers shoot from the roof of the hotel’s minarets toward the horizon, like a force field protecting the hotel from the rest of the city. It’s Aladdin meets a Las Vegas laser show. You can see it glowing from everywhere, like a spaceship that landed in the center of town and decided to stay. It’s one of the only buildings that remains lit during electricity cuts. Apart from the interrogation center, of course.

  Basma pulls into the parking lot, which is in an enclave surrounded by tall palm trees decorated with fairy lights. The hotel has three stages of security. The first consists of metal spikes that rise from the ground to prevent any cars from driving through. Basma idles the car in front of the spikes. An armed guard circles around us with a flimsy metal pole with a mirror stuck to the bottom, while the other does the same with an antenna-like stick pointed at the car. The scene reminds me of a sign I saw once while going through airport security in America. After going through the X-ray machine, I was pulled to one side and frisked by a security guard. As his gloved hands roamed over my body, I saw a sign taped to the desk behind him. The sign, in large Times New Roman type, read: REMEMBER! YOU ARE THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE! At the time I couldn’t help but feel it was me everyone was trying to defend themselves against. I wonder how often these guards think of themselves as being the first line of defense.

  We pass through the checks and Basma hands her keys to the valet. We step inside the entrance and make our way toward the metal detectors and X-ray machines. With each layer of security I feel myself descending deeper into a protective shield of privilege. As I approach the metal detector I place my mobile phone and belt and lighter and cigarettes in the plastic basket. I imagine taking out my politics and placing them neatly in the basket. I also imagine taking out my underlying resentment about being subjected to security checks and placing it in the basket. I take out my anger at this wedding, my sadness about the fact that I will never have a wedding like this, and the hypocrisy I feel for going to a wedding in the first place when I should be out protesting or organizing or releasing a statement. I place all these feelings in the basket and walk through the metal detector.

  I step into the dazzling lobby. A man in a sharp suit is playing a grand piano in the center of the hall. I glance down at my own suit, the front of which is now covered with a layer of dust from crouching on the floor of Basma’s car.

  “Everything is golden,” I tell no one in particular.

  “Where’s the wedding?” Basma barks at the doorman. He leads us down a red carpet toward some large doors. I stare at the floor as we walk. Red and white rose petals have been tossed on the carpet. Some of the petals have shoe marks on them. The doorman pulls open the heavy doors to the banquet hall.

  The wedding hall is a monstrous sight. The smell of perfume is suffocating. Men in Italian suits and women with painted lips and bourgeois hair blow air kisses to each other and talk about how happy they are. Some people stand in a line waiting to greet Leila’s parents, as if they are standing in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot. A band is setting up in the corner and excited chatter drowns out the classical music. In the center of the room there is a fountain with a sculpture of a heart that bears the initials L and T. A camera hovers on a pulley, catching panoramic bird’s-eye views of the enormous hall. I am about to say something but a bulb flashes in my face and I recoil. For a moment my ears are buzzing and all I see are stars.

  “So this is what we have to work with,” Basma says, tapping a burgundy fingernail to her lips.

  Beside us a group of women are chattering excitedly. They are all wearing open-toe shoes and their toenails are immaculately painted in various shades of pink. I stare at their sun-kissed toes, admiring their impeccable pedicures, until Basma tugs my arm and points toward a crowd of men.

  “There’s the groom. Let’s go say hi.”

  “He looks busy,” I say, suddenly nervous. “Let’s say hi later.”

  “Rasa, you can’t arrive and not say hi to him. Eib!” She clutches my hand and tugs me toward the crowd. The group of men are huddled together. As we walk toward them they burst out laughing, as if one has just shared a crude joke with the others. I wonder what it must be like to socialize with such confidence and ease. When we approach them the group breaks up and I find myself face-to-face with Taymour.

  “Congratulations,” Basma sings as she wraps her arms around his neck. He is wearing an expensive-looking suit. His cheeks shine under the lights. I’ve always preferred him scruffier, but I suppose he is not dressing for me tonight. He looks at me over her shoulder, a hollow smile plastered on his face. When Basma lets go, he shakes my hand firmly. I search his palm for a sign but there’s nothing, only a quick, strong handshake and then my hand is empty again.

  “Where’s Leila?” Basma asks.

  “She’s upstairs getting ready,” Taymour replies. “She’s having problems with her hair.” Oh Leila, even after embracing the ideology of the wedding mafia she still finds something problematic, even if it is just her hair.

  “I should go help,” Basma says. “Rasa, why don’t you find us a table?”

  When Basma walks away and it is just Taymour and me, his smile disappears.

  “I’m sorry about today.”

  “It’s all right. Congratulations,” I tell him.

  “I’m a lucky guy.”

  “Oh please.”

  “You look nice, Rasa.”

  “Thanks, Taymour. It was between this and a wedding dress, so …”

  Taymour grabs my arm and pulls me to one side.

  “If you aren’t going to behave then you shouldn’t have come,” he hisses in my face.

  “I wanted to see you. I need to talk to you.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he whispers, his eyes flitting between me and a group of women heading our way.

  “Fine, I’ll go.” I walk away and he grabs my arm again and pulls me back.

  “You can’t leave now. People will talk.”

  “Let them talk.”

  “Please. Leila wants you to stay. I want you to stay.”

  “Okay. Listen, I’ve got something to give you,” I reach into my pocket for the photograph of Abdallah, on the back of which I had written my letter.

  “What is it?” he asks. The girls are only meters away now and he flashes them that hollow smile.

  “Not now. When you have a minute come see me and we can talk.”

  Before he can reply the group of girls descend on us. They close in on him, forming a circle, and I’m now standing on the outside. I try not to look out of place, glance up at the ceiling, with its colossal glass chandeliers. This society does not feel like it’s mine, with its beautifully made-up women and high-fiving men. I feel wooden, afraid to speak lest a skeleton pop out of my mouth, afraid that if I move around too much the stench of my secret may permeate the room like the foul odor of a rotting corpse.

  The band has set up now and I walk over to where they are playing a jazzy version of “Here Comes the Bride.” Beside the band Taymour’s mother is greeting some guests. I consider walking up to her to offer my congratulations. Would she recognize me from the restaurant this afternoon? Perhaps I could drop into the conversation details about exactly who I was, and where
her son was last night. If Taymour loses his family, we will be on the same footing again. He won’t have anything except me and he’ll have no choice but to be with me. It’ll be the two of us against the world.

  Instead I walk toward the sleek glass tables arranged around the fountain. I recall a few years ago, Taymour and I were dancing the tango in my bedroom. It was just the two of us, bored, with nothing better to do. As we marched, hand in hand, back and forth across the room, I asked him if he ever thought about having children.

  “If I get married to a woman, which I don’t suppose will happen if I can get away with it, but if I do, then I will have children.”

  He put his arm around me and I leaned back.

  “What about if you were with a man, would you adopt?” I said, watching him hover above me.

  “Absolutely not.” He pulled me back up in one clean swoop. “It’s unnatural.”

  “It’s unnatural for two men who love each other to adopt a child? Why?”

  “I don’t know, it just is,” he said. “It’s against society.” We tripped on each other’s legs. “It’s one-two-three-turn, right?”

  I nodded. “What is society though? I mean what are the rules of society?”

  “It’s just against society,” he repeated, and gave me a kiss.

  And so the next day I told Maj that I felt that two men should not be allowed to adopt children. I tried the argument on for size and heard myself say it, just to see what it was like. To my surprise Maj agreed with me, saying that adopting children was a heteronormative performance that sought to castrate queerness.

  I look around the wedding hall. This is society, I tell myself. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and read the text from Maj.

  I’m sorry about tonight. Let’s meet later and talk, okay?

  “What would you like to say to Leila and Taymour?” a voice behind me says. I put my phone back in my pocket and turn around to see an overenthusiastic woman in a red gown interviewing two other women on camera. She is holding a white fluffy microphone that looks like a Persian cat.

  “Oh my God, mabrook you guys!” squeals one of the women in a royal blue dress. Her long hair is blow-dried to within an inch of perfection.

  “Mabrooook,” purrs the girl beside her with noticeably less enthusiasm. “Have lots of sex.”

  The two women giggle and walk away. The woman with the microphone catches my eye and rushes over, her cameraman struggling to keep up without tripping on the cables.

  “What would you like to say to Leila and Taymour?” she says, shoving the white microphone in my face.

  I stare at the camera and say nothing.

  “This will be put on their wedding video,” the woman prompts.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I wish you a happy life together.”

  The woman is not impressed. “Anything else?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Not even some words of advice?”

  I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the lens of the camera. My hair is disheveled and my eyes are tiny black pebbles. I look like some wild animal drawn to the light. I take a deep breath.

  “It makes me happy to see two people who love and care for each other be together. It gives the rest of us hope that one day we’ll all be as lucky as them.”

  The woman seems satisfied with this and the camera zooms out in search of more guests.

  A few months ago, on the night of his engagement party, I was helping Taymour get ready. On nights like those, when he was playing his role for society, he often appeared nervous or distant, his thoughts far from the little world we created. At first this used to worry me, that he might one day never return to our world. After a while I accepted that this was just the way he was, and I loved him regardless.

  That night, however, as I showed him how to knot his tie, he suddenly grabbed my hand and looked me in the eye.

  “Rasa?” His voice sounded pleading.

  “What?”

  “Why am I doing this?” There were tears forming in his eyes. “I look around at my family and see how happy they are. Everyone is celebrating and all I can think is that my joy is a lie. Everything in my life is a lie.”

  I let go of his tie and touched his cheek. “But we’re not a lie.”

  “Then what are we? Are we anything? I sometimes feel like we are just inside my head, and not out here, not a reality. I don’t know how we can ever be real.”

  “Do you mention me to others?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said, looking down.

  “What sort of things do you say?”

  “You just come up in conversation. Why wouldn’t you? You’re all I think about.”

  “Keep doing that, okay? Just keep mentioning me.”

  I had wanted to cook him his favorite dishes. I had wanted to introduce him to my family. Even after Taymour and Leila got together, I had believed their courtship would keep our secret safe. I watched as Taymour juggled his public life with our private moments. From my position as his dirty secret I could see how much of society was a performance. I was surprised by how brilliant this performance could be and how high the stakes were. Society can take you high up but very quickly you can lose it all. I realize now we have descended deep into the lie we created for ourselves, as deep as we can possibly go.

  I kick a red balloon next to my foot and look around for a table to join. I eye the first table on my right, but females already occupy four of the six chairs. I enjoy the company of women. I share their humor and emotions and being among them allows me to be carefree, but I do not want to be the only man at the table. It would only invite questions: Why is he sitting with the women all the time? Is he looking for a wife? Oh no, not Rasa.

  “Rasa, come sit here,” someone behind me calls out. Mimi, an old friend from high school, waves me over to a table next to the fountain. She is wearing a strapless turquoise dress. Her bare shoulders shine like sparkling diamonds.

  “Where’ve you been these days?” Mimi asks. “Why don’t you call me anymore?”

  Here we go with these questions and investigations. Why don’t you call? Where are you going? When are you getting married? Why is your door locked? Who are you with in there? Everyone in this country is an investigative journalist. Am I to blame for these questions? Do I have a face that invites others to interfere in my affairs? Do I lay myself at their feet and allow them to tread on my neck?

  “I’ve been busy,” I say, kissing her cheek. “How’ve you been?”

  “So busy with fashion week. Do you know Lulu and Dodi?” Mimi introduces me to the couple sitting on her right. Dodi has a thin black goatee that appears to be painted on with a needle. Lulu has big lips and velvety eyes. They look like every other couple here and so I don’t recognize them.

  “I think we may have met at Mimi’s wedding,” Lulu says. “This is my husband, Dodi.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I turn to Mimi. “Basma is joining us.”

  “Très bien. We’ll save her the final seat. Hamza’s also sitting with us.”

  “Hamza who?” I ask.

  “Hamza from high school.”

  The only Hamza I remember from high school is the Hamza who terrorized me relentlessly. The Hamza who cornered us in the alley and kicked Maj into the mud on the day we met. The Hamza who introduced me to the word khawal. That Hamza, with his muscle-bound henchmen who took great joy in torturing us whenever they had the chance. Hamza had made sure I spent most of high school with my head down, not drawing attention to myself. I was terrified of sticking out, careful not to laugh too hard but to always blend in, in the hope that they would never notice. When they did they would often push us against the walls of the school halls, moaning in our ears as they rubbed their crotches on us. Sometimes I would masturbate to the thought of Hamza finishing the job one day.

  “Are you okay?” Mimi asks.

  I nod and take a seat beside her. The thought of having to spend the night sitting at the same table as my torment
or makes me want to curl myself into a tight ball and disappear.

  “What’s new?” I ask Mimi.

  “It’s been awful,” Mimi says, running a finger around the edge of her glass of water. “Turns out all the business trips my father was making to Italy were because he has another family there. Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m sorry.” All I can remember about Mimi’s family is that her father is an import-export connoisseur, one of the big families in the city. He imports both cigarettes and respiratory machines for hospitals, thereby ensuring a constant stream of supply and demand.

  I glance around the room in search of Taymour. I see him speaking to Leila’s father and uncle. He shakes their hands and then walks out of the room. I consider following him to give him my letter, but a hand grabs my shoulder. I turn around to see Hamza. He’s looking down at me with a menacing smile. I half expect the smile to turn into a sneer. He shakes my hand firmly, nearly breaking my bones in the process.

  “Rasa, how are you, ya zalameh?”

  Now I’m a zalameh. If only he knew what this zalameh does behind closed doors.

  “Hamdullah,” I mumble.

  “I haven’t seen you in years. Are we friends on Facebook? Let me friend you now.” He reaches into his pocket and digs out his phone. Moments later there’s a ping on my phone. Hamza has requested to add you as a friend. His profile picture is a shot of him in military uniform, stepping out of a helicopter. He’s wearing Ray-Bans like some James Bond prick.

  I really need a drink.

  “The fountain is such a nice touch,” Lulu says to her husband. “Don’t you think, babe?” She pronounces “babe” like it rhymes with “dweeb.”

  Basma arrives and takes the empty seat next to me.

  “They’re about to come down,” she says.

  The music stops and the chandelier lights are dimmed. A spotlight shines at the top of the white marble staircase that snakes its way onto a balcony on the far side of the room. Three men wearing white sharwals emerge onto the balcony. Holding tablas under their arms, their large hands bash the animal skin stretched over the tabla as they begin to walk down the staircase. As the drumming intensifies four other men follow behind them. They stand in pairs, stomping their feet to the drumming.